I have many many major old injuries - and a spine that is part titanium. I am currently flat on my back due to the pain that I've been in all day. I really need His Mercy - especially during the Advent and Lenten Seasons when church service are both important and plentiful.

I've had serious back problems myself the past seven years and too often find myself stuck to the floor (or bed). I hope you can find someone who can allay your pain.

I think this is more the after effects from the pain being allayed - I USED to be quite disabled before I had surgery. This pain is more arthritic than anything else - in the surgery site (my spine has been fused and built up with titanium from L4 to S1) and aching in other places/joints where I've broken bones. It's damper this year than it was last, so I think I'm feeling it more. I can't do a lot of the stretching I used to do before my surgery - I don't have that kind of flexibility any longer, but I'm walking. . . which is a miracle in itself. The doc's and surgeons didn't think I would walk again.

Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

"For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, 14.